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Category: Dragonflight

Dragonflight Zone Preview: Ohn’ahran Plains & Dungeon Preview: A Bounty of Adventure Ahead, Feedback: Paladins & Warriors

Blizzard has released 2 new previews. This time for the Ohn’ahran Plains and for the 8 new dungeons. They have also responded to Paladin and Warrior feedback.

Dragonflight Zone Preview: Ohn’ahran Plains

Quote from: Blizzard

Explore the Ohn’ahran Plains, a verdant region filled with sweeping plateaus, mesas, groves, and valleys abundant with life.

Named after the Wild God of the Wind, Ohn’ahra, the Ohn’ahran Plains are a viridescent grassland that rise gently upward from the Waking Shores, with mellow hills and steppes worn smooth by wind and river. This region boasts prominent and dramatic elevations that become more mountainous, and geysers are alive with erupting columns of boiling steam.

Once home to the green dragonflight, nature thrives in the Ohn’ahran Plains. Magnificent, lush greenery abounds, and calm waters flow through the Emerald Gardens, an area alive with natural wonder drawn from the magic of the Emerald Dream.

The endlessly open plains are abundant with life, and the landscape is dotted with singing stones.

Ohn’ahran’s Denizens and Wildlife

Vast plateaus and mesas are home to the growing clans of centaurs, each a unique culture unto itself and masters of different specialties. The centaur clans are deeply connected to the land, maintaining their traditions, and those seeking to assist can earn their trust.

This region is teeming with life. High grasses surround watering holes that draw in large wildlife that provide ample prey for the hungry proto-dragons soaring through the skies. Here are some of the creatures you’ll happen upon in your travels.

Rockfang
Rockfang
Mammoth
Mammoth
Blue Hornstrider
Blue Hornstrider

The Ohn’ahran Plains are waiting for you to continue your adventure in Dragonflight. We look forward to sharing more details as development continues.

Dragonflight Dungeon Preview: A Bounty of Adventure Ahead

Quote from: Blizzard

Face new challenges and adventures in the Dragon Isles with four new level-up dungeons and four maximum-level dungeons. Danger, malice, and perhaps a bit of loot are yours to discover. Here’s a brief look at each of the dungeons.

Level-up dungeons:

  • Ruby Life Pools
  • Brackenhide Hollow
  • The Nokhud Offensive
  • Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr

Max-level dungeons:

  • Neltharus
  • The Azure Vault
  • Halls of Infusion
  • Algeth’ar Academy

Some descriptions and information are still in progress or may change as development progresses.

Zone: The Waking Shores

Ruby Life Pools

  • Melidrussa Chillworn: Melidrussa was chosen to lead the Flashfrost infusion efforts in the Ruby Life Pools. Her mastery of primal energy manipulation includes exceptional control over elemental frost. She wields this power to carry out her fervent belief in protecting dragonkin from the influence of titans.
  • Kokia Blazehoof: As Primalist forces assault the Ruby Life Pools from all sides, it falls to Kokia and her Blazebound lieutenants to capture precious eggs from overwhelmed defenders, spreading flame and havoc as they go.
  • Kyrakka and Erkhart Stormvein

Neltharus

Beneath the Obsidian Citadel lies Neltharus, home of the black dragonflight’s hoard and the secrets behind their legendary forging. When the djaradin woke from their slumber, they chose Neltharus as the point of entry for their attack. Surprised to find it deserted, they quickly laid claim to its secrets for themselves… as well as the rest of the Obsidian Citadel.

  • Chargath, Bane of Scales: This veteran dragon hunter’s title was given eons ago as a mark of legend. While the Qalashi hunters under his command train, he plans their next offensive and awaits with eager anticipation the opportunity to display his expertise.
  • Forgemaster Gorek: As one of the djaradin’s most distinguished craftsmen, the Forgemaster Gorek now resides in his sweltering chamber of the black dragon barracks. There, he harnesses the igneous power of the massive forge to construct deadly weaponry.
  • Magmatusk: The djaradin discovered many of Neltharion’s secrets while plundering Neltharus. An experimental potion gone awry created Magmatusk, a behemoth of a mammoth bent on sheer destruction.
  • Warlord Sargha: Leader of the Qalash djaradin, Warlord Sargha has been in search of anything that would increase the power of her clan and help take down their draconic enemies. In the hoard at the heart of Neltharus, she may have found exactly what the djaradin need.

Zone: The Azure Span

Brackenhide Hollow

Brackenhide Hollow is the largest gnoll home in the Dragon Isles, yet the wild gnoll settlement holds unspeakable danger. Decay seeps from the Hollow, spreading among the gnoll tribes of the Azure Span and threatening to rot away all life. In the heart of the Hollow lies the leader of the Brackenhide, and the knowledge she gleefully shares with her withered kin.

  • Hackclaw’s War-Band: Rira Hackclaw and her compatriots, Gashtooth and Tricktotem have risen up as a deadly warband among the Brackenhide. Their tactics are the reason tuskarr never travel alone, and their strength is the reason Wratheye has them guarding the gate to the Hollow.
  • Treemouth: Withered by decay, this once proud ancient has been dubbed Treemouth by the gnolls. As the rot settled into its branches, so too did it settle in the poor creature’s mind, leaving a creature bent on nothing more than the need to feed and spread decay.
  • Gutshot: This sharpshooting gnoll has mastered the art of hunting, trapping, and killing her prey. Impressed by her abilities and cunning, the Decatriarch has assigned Gutshot to oversee and train the other hunters…and take out any interlopers that might venture too far into Brackenhide.
  • Decatriarch Wratheye: Wratheye discovered decay magic in her thirst for power, and declared herself the Decatriarch after mastering it. She now builds the strength of the Brackenhide by spreading her dark magic among her tribe so the tuskarr, and all of the Azure Span, will rot in its wake.

The Azure Vault

Long ago, Malygos created the Azure Vault as a place for Sindragosa to catalogue and store away curious magical artifacts he found. Locked away and deserted millenia ago, the Vault has since fallen into disrepair, leaving it vulnerable to attacks from without… and within.

  • Leymor: Leymor was born of a humble seedling that Malygos found in a pool of ley energy. Once but a small sprout in Sindragosa’s garden, over millenia Leymor has shot up like a weed. Left to its own devices, the looming giant would surely overrun the entirety of the Azure Vault.
  • Azureblade: As security for the Vault, Azureblade refused to leave when it was sealed, choosing duty over safety. When the blue dragons failed to return, her bitter resignation drove her to eventual madness. Extending her own life with the magics she was sworn to protect, Azureblade now claims ownership over all the blue dragonflight left behind.
  • Telash Greywing: Furious at the blue dragonflight, Telash Greywing is determined to find the secrets that Sindragosa has been hiding in the Arcane Vault. Together with the Sundered Flame, he is certain he will discover more about the origins of the dracthyr… and incriminating evidence against the blue dragonflight.
  • Umbrelskul: Millenia ago, Umbrelskul unwittingly meddled with raw arcane power. Riddled with crystalline growths, he was taken to the Azure Vault until a cure could be found. Sadly, the Vault was sealed away before the research was completed, leaving Umbrelskul sleeping in stasis… until now.

Zone: Ohn’ahran Plains

The Nokhud Offensive

Civil war has erupted in the wake of Clan Nokhud’s capture of the ancient eagle spirit, Ohn’ahra. To the other clans, Ohn’ahra is more than a mere spirit: she is their goddess. Primalists summon elemental forces, and necromancers command the spirits of legendary centaur. Beset by enemies from all sides, other Marruk clans must rally for a final assault against the Nokhud and their khan, Balakar.

  • Granyth: The shadow of Granyth is known across the plains of Ohn’ahra as an omen of death and destruction. As battles between centaur clans rage across the plains, he knows it is time to destroy his ancient enemies once and for all. Soon he will land on the battlefield. Teams of centaur have armed their ballistae with bolts enchanted by Clan Shikaar. They stand ready to focus the fire of their artillery against the Primalist proto-dragon, but someone must be brave enough to stand on the front lines.
  • The Raging Tempest: Violent storm winds that ravage the plains of Ohn’ahra have coalesced into an avatar of the storm. The Raging Tempest continues to gather power to devastate not only the plains of Ohn’ahra, but eventually the entirety of the Dragon Isles. Unless champions can defeat the stormcasters and dispel their relentless elemental, Primalist chaos will reign on the plains.
  • Teera and Marruk: Blasphemous Ukhel necromancers are resurrecting legendary centaur. The spirits of Teera, the matriarch of the Ohn’ahran clans, and Maruuk, the centaur’s greatest warrior, have been raised from their graves. Blinded by painful and traumatic memories of their past, the two legends now answer the commands of Balakar and the Nokhud centaur! Only the tumult of battle can rouse them from necromantic manipulation. Once their fury has abated, perhaps they can find rest again… and eternal peace.
  • Balakar Khan: Balakar Khan is the ruthless and mighty leader of the Nokhud clan. With the great eagle spirit Ohn’ahra captured by his stormcasters, he plans to grant himself the power of the wind. Hatred unites his clan against all “outsiders,” as he calls for a return to the brutal and barbaric practices of the past. The relentless Nokud offensive continues. Someone must stand up to its tyrannical commander.

Zone: Eastern Kingdoms: Badlands

Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr

Zone: Thaldraszus

Halls of Infusion (In Development)

  • Watcher Irideus: Tasked by Tyr to protect the Halls of Infusion from outsiders, Watcher Irideus has waited to perform his duties for centuries. When finally confronted by outsiders, however, Irideus fell short. He does not intend to fail again.
  • Gulping Goliath: Deep within the natural caverns linking together the functional parts of the Halls of Infusion lurks the Gulping Goliath.  Father to generations of Hornswogs in this underground lair, the Goliath and his brood are quick to devour any creatures that stray too close.
  • Khajin the Unyielding: Khajin honed her power over the elements with anger, directed at those forces which saddled Azeroth with their intent. Unleashed upon the Halls of Infusion, Khajin vowed to stop at nothing to upend the Titans’ order.
  • Primal Tsunami: Summoned by all of the will that Infuser Sariya could muster, the Primal Tsunami was given life to break apart the Halls of Infusion.

Algeth’ar Academy (In Development)

  • Vexamus
  • Accidental Amalgamation
  • Crawth
  • Echo of Headteacher Doragosa

Feedback: Warriors

Quote from: Blizzard

We feel that all three Warrior specializations have excellent foundations for both their class fantasies and with regard to how fun their rotations are to play. So, our goal for the class in Dragonflight has been to evolve and enhance each specialization rather than to revolutionize or rebuild them.

We’re trying to strike a balance between existing things you know and love, exciting new talents and greatest hits from that past such as Blood and Thunder, Odyn’s Fury and Cold Steel, Hot Blood.

With this in mind, players should expect core rotations to feel comfortable and familiar but with a much wider variety of choice in terms of which elements they can enhance. In addition to this we’re also attempting to build in support to enable players to experiment with more varied playstyles if they desire, such as the Arms being able to heavily investing in damage over time abilities and Fury being able to double down on auto attacks.

–August 11–

The arrangement of Warrior talents in the Alpha at this time is a partial implementation towards opening up more options for each specialization. We expect to have the full version of this in the next Alpha build, and once it’s live, we’d love to hear whether you prefer the wider choices or a more streamlined tree like we had in the initial version of the revamped Warrior class tree.

Arms

  • We’re happily getting close to the finish with the Arms talent tree. There’s still work to do on individual talents (including a few additions) rather than the tree structure as a whole.

Fury

  • Currently the Fury tree is undergoing some iteration and what you’re seeing in the Alpha today, unfortunately, has some key missing placements, connections, and a number of requirements that are not working correctly.
  • We’ll also likely make Titan’s grip baseline, as there’s no specific benefits (outside of weapon stats) for picking up this talent in comparison to others in the tree.

Protection

  • We’ve been recently focused on the overall class, as we’ve been pleased with Protection and feedback that this talent tree is mostly in a good place. We’ll be looking more at Protection once the other trees are up to the same standard.

Feedback: Paladins

Quote from: Blizzard

This was an intentional change. Rule of Law provides unique utility to increase the range of your heals. The reality is, people used it as a throughput cooldown. Not every situation needs a range increase, but having the option to do so is nice and not something we wanted to remove.

This is something we’re working on, we don’t intend on removing the ability to dispel magic effects from Holy Paladin.

Hotfixes – 9 August 2022, Phase 5 Dragonflight Alpha Development Notes, Feedback: Dragonriding & Hunters

Last night we got a new set of hotfixes for the live servers which include buffed drops for Cosmic Flux! The Alpha went into phase 5 with a ton of new changes such as Warlocks, 2 new dungeons, Tailoring and Engineering being enabled. Check out the full notes below!

Hotfixes – 9 August 2022

Quote from: Blizzard

AUGUST 9, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Fated Castle Nathria
    • Sludgefist
      • Adjusted the Fated Power cooldowns to better align with their ability cadence.
  • Fated Sanctum of Domination
    • Guardian of the First Ones
      • Adjusted the Fated Power cooldowns to better align with their ability cadence.
    • Kel’Thuzad
      • Fixed an interaction where Protoform Barrier (Fated Power) could erroneously trigger after Kel’Thuzad’s health is depleted.
    • Sylvanas Windrunner
      • Adjusted the Fated Power cooldowns to better align with their ability cadence in Phase 2.
  • Mythic+
    • Shrouded Affix
      • Fixed an issue that could cause Zul’gamux to not cast Blood Siphon if she was moving.

Items and Rewards

  • Increased all Cosmic Flux rewards from PvP, Mythic+, and Raids by 100%.
  • Cosmic Flux will now be mailed to players when left un-looted.
  • Trashmaster’s Mantle received from Mythic+ or the Great Vault can no longer be used to complete the “I Am the Trashmaster” quest.
    • Developers’ note: Players hoping to become the Trashmaster may do so by finding a Trashmaster’s Mantle in Operation: Mechagon on standard Mythic difficulty. Players who have received a Trashmaster’s Mantle from Mythic+ since the start of Season 4 may still use it to complete the quest, but should be aware that the Richly Appointed Drape quest reward will be awarded at item level 78.

Quests

  • Fixed an issue that prevented “Tempting Fate” world quests from appearing.

Season of Mastery

  • Naxxramas
    • Fixed an issue where bonus loot could not be rewarded when defeating a boss using Runes of Fortune.
      • Developers’ note: Raid groups should always receive an extra Set Piece Token, piece of Gear the boss normally drops, or Splinter of Atiesh per stack of Rune of Fortune the raid has active.

Phase 5 Dragonflight Alpha Development Notes

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello everyone! Here are this week’s Dragonflight Alpha development notes:

DISCOVER THE DRAGON ISLES

  • Ohn’ahran Plains
  • Removed: Thaldraszus

NEW DUNGEONS

Developers’ note: Throughout the testing period, character levels will be scaled when entering Dragonflight dungeons. When this happens, the amount of talent points that your character will have available will reflect the original level, not the scaled level.

  • The Azure Vault
  • Brackenhide Hollow

CHARACTER LEVEL

Developers’ note: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state. After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.

  • Level 62 Character Template
  • Maximum Level: 65
  • Mechagnomes have been re-enabled.

CLASSES

  • NEW TALENT SYSTEM
    • Switching Talents and Talent Loadouts no longer requires being in a rested area.
      • Developers’ note: In this Alpha build, we’ve removed the rested area requirement for changing Talents and Loadouts. Players are now be able to change their talents anywhere out in the world, as long as they’re not in combat. Additionally, previous restrictions such as not being in an Active Mythic+ instance or in a Rated PVP match still apply. In tandem with loosening this requirement, we’re adding a 5 second cast time when players change their existing talents/loadouts to prevent players from immediately swapping between different builds. This cast time does not apply to any new Talent points gained, those can be spent and activated immediately. Please let us know your thoughts on this change.
    • Evoker
      • Racial Abilities
        • Soar – Cooldown reduced to 4 minutes (was 5 minutes).
        • Familiar Skies now reduces Soar’s cooldown by 1 minute on continents that you have fully explored.
      • Class Tree
        • Developers’ notes: We want to add additional utility-focused talent choices to the Evoker class tree to diversify talent builds. With that in mind, some additional control and self-healing options are now available:
        • New Talent – Grovetender’s Gift: Emerald Blossom instantly heals you for 125% spell power when cast.
        • New Talent – Walloping Blow – Wing Buffet and Tail Swipe knock enemies further and daze them, reducing movement speed by 70% for 4 sec.
        • New Talent – Regenerative Magic: – Source of Magic forms a bond with your ally, causing 20% of their healing to also heal you while you are below 50% health.
        • Ancient Flame moved to a new location in the tree, next to Attuned to the Dream.
      • Preservation
        • Developers’ notes: These latest talent changes for Preservation are aimed at improving Temporal Anomaly’s synergy with the rest of the kit, and balancing Bronze-based builds against Green-based ones. We were also unhappy with some talent nodes (Essence Strike and Grove Tender) and replaced them with talents that should encourage a wider variety of spell usage.
        • Life-Giver’s Flame is now a 2 point node, and moved down one slot in the tree.
        • Essence Strike has been removed and replaced by Essence Attunement.
        • New Talent: Essence Attunement – Causes Essence Burst to stack twice.
        • Temporal Anomaly now heals every 2 seconds (was 1 second). Healing doubled to compensate.
        • Convergence has been removed and replaced by Resonating Sphere.
        • New Talent: Resonating Sphere – Causes Temporal Anomaly to apply Echo at 15%/30% Effectiveness (2 point node). Does not apply Echo’s direct heal. Affected by Time Lord to become up to 60% Echo effectiveness.
        • Temporal Disruption now causes Temporal Anomaly to tick twice as fast (was healing for more).
        • Grove Tender has been removed and replaced by Ouroboros.
        • New Talent: Ouroboros – Each person healed by Emerald Blossom increases healing of next Echo by 15%, stacking 15 times.
        • Time Keeper has swapped positions with Time of Need in the talent tree.
    • Hunter
      • Class Changes
        • Survival of the Fittest removed from Tenacity pets.
        • New Tenacity active button – Fortitude of the Bear: Increase the maximum health of you and your pet by 20% for 10 seconds.
      • Class Tree
        • Hunter’s Agility changed from Avoidance to 4/8% Dodge per rank.
        • Thick Hides removed.
        • Fogged Crystal removed.
        • Born to be Wild now works with Survival of the Fittest and is now a 2-rank talent, reducing cooldowns of affected abilities by 10% per rank.
        • Improved Tranquilizing Shot changed to a 1-point node.
        • Survival of the Fittest added to the tree.
        • New Choice node for Survival of the fittest:
          • Reduce the cooldown of Survival of the Fittest by 60 seconds, and increase the duration by 2 seconds.
          • Increase the amount of damage reduction from Survival of the Fittest by 20%.
        • Several talents on the class tree have had their positions adjusted due to Thick Hides and Fogged Crystal being removed, as well as Survival of the Fittest being added.
        • New (NYI) Talent – Sentinel Owl: Call forth a Sentinel Owl to the target location, granting you unhindered vision. Your attacks ignore line of sight against any target in this area. Every 200 Focus spent grants you 1 second of the Sentinel Owl when cast, up to a maximum of 12 seconds.
          • New Choice node for Sentinel Owl:
            • Sentinel’s Perception: Sentinel Owl now also grants unhindered vision to party members when active.
            • Sentinel’s Wisdom: While Sentinel Owl is active, your party gains 5% Leech and 3% Avoidance.
      • Marksmanship
        • Serpenstalker’s Trickery is now a 1 point talent.
        • A large amount of talents in the bottom left of the tree were adjusted to fix dependency problems.
      • Survival
        • Explosive Expert changed to 2/4 second reduction per point.
        • Kill Command for Survival only now has an innate 10% chance to have its cooldown reset.
        • Predator’s Kill Command chance reduced to 15% (was 25%).
        • Fury of the Eagle lowered to 30% crit chance bonus against targets below 20% health.
        • Fury of the Eagle now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.
        • Tactical advantage had its tooltip split to a separate number for Wildfire Bomb and Flanking Strike. Wildfire Bomb’s values reduced to 4/8% per point, Flanking Strike values unchanged.
    • Paladin
      • Holy
        • Developers’ note: The Holy Paladin Talent tree is now enabled in this Alpha build. For Dragonflight, we want to give Holy Paladins more options for caster-focused playstyles by bringing back the Power of the Silver Hand passive effect from the Legion Artifact, in addition to the active button Tyr’s Deliverance.
      • Class Talents
        • Afterimage now correctly only triggers on a Word of Glory cast.
        • Incandescence damage increased by 300%.
          • Developers’ note: This talent was extremely under tuned and did not feel rewarding as a point investment in the talent tree.
      • Protection
        • Changed positions of Strength of Conviction, Resolute Defender, Faith’s Armor, and Guardian of Ancient Kings.
        • Added several additional node connections in center section of tree.
        • Faith’s Armor increased to 10% (was 5%).
        • Blessed Hammer now correctly overrides Crusader Strike.
      • Retribution
        • Removed Talents
          • Last Rites
          • Deemed Unworthy
          • Swift Crusader
          • Long Arm of the Law
            • Developer’s note: We recognize that movement is fun and feels good when attached to short cooldown buttons. That said, our goal for Retribution Paladin is to keep their strengths in removing things that hinder their mobility, or to charge into battle on their Divine Steed, not to give them a short duration burst of movement on a very short cooldown.
          • Liadrin’s Fury
        • New Talents
          • Holy Crusader – Increases mastery by 2%.
          • Seal of Wrath – Judgment has a 25% chance to cast again and deal extra Holy damage to its target.
          • Empyrean Endowment – Judgment empowers your next Templar’s Verdict to automatically trigger Divine Storm with 25% more effectiveness. This effect can only occur every 30 seconds.
          • Executioner’s Wrath – Execution Sentence now instead deals 15% of the damage taken from your abilities to the target and nearby enemies within 8 yards.
          • Sanctified Ground – Your Consecration is 15% larger, and you cannot be slowed below 80% of normal movement speed within Consecration. This effect lasts for 2 seconds after leaving Consecration.
          • Sealed Verdict – Your Holy Power spending abilities increase the damage of your next Blade of Justice by 8/16%.
        • Modified Talents
          • Highlord’s Judgment now has 2 ranks and increases Judgment damage by 8/16% per rank.
          • Calm Before the Storm now causes enemies hit by your Divine Storm to take 100% more damage from your Consecration for 8 seconds (was 50%).
          • Inner Power now grants Holy Power every 12 seconds while you are in combat (was 10 seconds).
            • Developers’ note: This is aimed to tune the Holy Power generation overall and to balance against Sanctification.
        • Developer Notes
          • The area before the 1st gate has been restructured in a way that allows players to bypass the talents that they do not want and save a talent point while trying to go down all 3 sides of the tree. Also, the importance of the new talents such as Timely Judgment and Condemned Blade has been heightened so that players consider them more often when creating a build.
          • Zeal and Blade of Wrath have been moved up and put before the 1st gate.
            • Zeal and Blade of Wrath positional changes are aimed to solidify the foundation of Retribution Paladin. The new positioning will allow the players to get these talents in a simpler and more satisfying way for both leveling and end game content.
          • Crusade and Avenging Wrath: Might choice node has been moved up and put before the 2nd gate. This choice node is now located where Execution Sentence was in the previous build.
          • Execution Sentence and its improvement node has been moved down and put after the 2nd gate.
            • The positional changes to Crusade/AW: Might and Execution Sentence are aimed to provide gameplay defining options after the 2nd gate. The change to Execution Sentence will allow new gameplay options and is now heightened with its improvement nodes aimed at both single target and AOE situations.
          • The area after the 2nd gate has been reconstructed in a way that aims to increase build diversity and choice.
      • Known Issues
        • Not all rank upgrades are implemented.
    • Shaman
      • Elemental
        • New Talent – Heat Wave: Casting Primordial Wave triggers Lava Surge immediately and every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.
        • Primal Storm Elemental no longer moves slower than other Elementals after engaging in combat.
        • Earthquake damage reduced by 40%.
          • Developers’ note: This is not intended to be a nerf, but a damage profile adjustment. Earthquake dominates Elemental’s AoE damage profile in Shadowlands. We’ve also added talents in Dragonflight that improve Earthquake’s output such as Unrelenting Calamity, Eye of the Storm, and Mountains Will Fall which would have continued this trend. The goal is to allow for abilities like Chain Lightning, Lightning Rod, Frost Shock (with Electrified Shocks), Flame Shock, and Lava Burst to contribute more towards Elemental’s AoE.
        • Rolling Magma’s Lava Burst and Lava Burst Overload damage now reduces the cooldown of Primordial Wave by 0.2 seconds/0.5 seconds (was from 0.5 seconds/1 second).
          • Developers’ note: The interactions are with Primordial Wave and Ascendance are intentional, but the cooldown reduction was initially tuned too high.
      • Restoration
        • Cloudburst Totem now converts 30% of stored healing (was 20%) and cooldown increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
          • Developers’ note: With some new talents that interact with Cloudburst Totem like Call of the Elements, Totemic Surge, and Totemic Focus, we feel its effectiveness needs to be decreased. We started with its healing effectiveness initially but after some feedback believe it’s more important for each totem cast to feel meaningful rather than having more uses of the totem.
    • Warlock
      • Developers’ note: In this Alpha build, we are unveiling the talent trees of our favorite curse slinging, shadow bolt hurling, demon summoning class: the Warlock. These trees were built to emphasize the strong thematic and rotational gameplay that is already present with each specialization.
      • That said, we are making a few changes to address the pain points we’ve experienced while playing and concerns that have been brought up by the community. You can read more about these changes down below and our thoughts regarding why the change was made.
        • Core Changes
          • Spell Lock in the talent tree
            • With Dragonflight, we’ve removed Spell Lock from Felhunters and Spell Lock is now available for Warlocks to learn themselves. With this change, we are aiming to allow for more pet diversity in content where Felhunters feel required like dungeons and PvP.
          • Dark Soul is not in the talent tree for Dragonflight intentionally. There are a few reasons for this:
            • All Warlock specs have access to a powerful summon cooldown that interacts with the rest of their spells where Dark Soul increases a stat by a large amount. We prefer to keep the interactive spell.
            • With cooldown stacking, a high percentage of overall damage is boiled down to the cooldown window. While this can be useful for bursting, but damage output outside of this window tends to be lackluster.
            • Across the classes there are new active spells which we are both excited about and equally cautious of causing keybinding issues by adding. Finding times to pull back on active spells is something we’re on the lookout for.
          • Shadow Bolt and Incinerate base damage has been increased
            • We’ve increased the damage of Shadow Bolt and Incinerate significantly and lowered modifiers from various talents. Our goal is for these spells to feel more powerful without having to ramp to see benefits from casting it.
          • Shadowflame
            • Shadowflame is returning; however, we don’t want a short-ranged cone spell to be a rotational for a caster, so we’ve removed the damage from the ability.
        • Affliction
          • Vile Taint revamp
            • Vile Taint has been reworked – Unleashes a vile explosion at the target location, dealing X Shadow damage over 10 seconds to 8 enemies within 10 yards and applies Agony and Curse of Exhaustion to them.
            • With this change, we aim to allow Affliction to ramp up faster in dungeon gameplay especially in combination with talents like Agonizing Corruption and Sow the Seeds.
          • Deathbolt is now a base talent
            • Through Deathbolt and its modifying talents we aim to give Affliction an interesting alternative to Malefic Rapture when the situation calls for single target damage.
        • Destruction
          • An Alternative to Havoc
            • We are exploring an alternative to Havoc called Mayhem. It’s a passive that gives your single target spells a chance to deal 60% of its damage to a random nearby target. The goal with this talent is to give a more passive two-target option for players who would like to opt out of Havoc gameplay. For tuning, we intend for active Havoc gameplay to be rewarded over playing with Mayhem.
      • Along with these changes you’ll see both new spells and some old friends returning. Soul Rot and Decimating Bolt will be coming with us from the Shadowlands, Dimensional Rift returns from Legion, and many more.
      • While the core rotations of each specialization will remain familiar, these talents offer new options that will allow you to modify your gameplay and choose what’s important to you.
      • Welcome back to Azeroth, Warlocks. We look forward to hearing tales of the chaos you’ll rain down across the Dragon Isles. Be sure to let us know your thoughts, our Eye of Kilrogg will be actively watching your discussions.
    • Warrior
      • Developers’ note: As the Warrior trees were just recently put on Alpha, we’re still processing the large amount of great feedback being provided, so please keep giving us your thoughts as we’re collecting feedback from a wide variety of sources and it all helps!
      • Even though we’re still processing the feedback we’ve received, we did want to take some time to respond to a few points of feedback:
        • Multi-level stat nodes in the Warrior tree serve as gates that you need to spend into in order to access the classes ultimate abilities. The intention of the Talent system is that there are choices and not that you can obtain every point. Using multipoint nodes is a way to control that, but also to direct the flow of certain specializations towards groups of talents that are likely better for them. However, we’ve been reading your feedback and are endeavoring to make them more interesting and varied where we can.
        • Players have expressed some negativity around buying back components of old abilities. We’re trying to keep this to a minimum where we can in the warrior class, for example Rampage’s full functionality now comes from one talent. However, in some cases these talents are used for teaching new players during the leveling up process to play their class correctly.
        • We also wanted to clarify some concerns Fury players have regarding needing to obtain 4 weapons to perform optimally in the game. Current tuning aside, our expectation and plan is for Titan’s Grip to be the most competitive specialization for those that engage with progression related content of all forms at the highest levels. However, for those looking for a more relaxed playstyle that is less stressful and skill dependent but still competitive then they have that option also.
      • Class Talents
        • New Talent: Concussive Blows – Reduce the cooldown of Pummel by 1.5 seconds and successfully interrupting an enemy increases the damage you deal against them by 5% for 10 seconds. This may only occur once every 30 seconds.
        • Rearranged some talent nodes and created more interweaving paths to try and create more build variety.
        • Removed Die by the Sword from the Class tree and returned it to the Arms tree.
        • Improved Heroic Throw should correctly override Heroic Throw.
        • Reduced ranks of Two-Handed and Dual-Wield Specializations to 1.
      • Arms
        • New Talent: Skull Banner – You throw down a Skull Banner at your feet, empowering your allies. Increases critical strike damage by 20% for party members within 20 yards of the war banner. Lasts 10 seconds. Removed Concussive Blows from the Arms tree.
        • New Talent: Die by the Sword – Increases your parry chance by 100% and reduces all damage you take by 30% for 8 seconds.
        • Changed some pathing to try and make synergy groups clearer.
        • The Aura applied to enemies by Fatality is now named Fatal Mark and now lasts 60 seconds, refreshing by new stacks.
        • Fatal Mark caused by the Fatality talent can no longer critically strike.
        • Cleaned up the tooltip for Exploit the Weakness.
        • Built old ranks of Colossus Smash into Colossus Smash correctly.
        • Built old ranks of Sweeping Strikes into Sweeping Strikes correctly.
        • Reduced ranks of Improved Mortal Strike and Improved Overpower to 1.
        • Updated Icon for Martial Prowess.
      • Fury
        • New Talent: Unbridled Ferocity – Rampage has a 10% chance to grant you Recklessness for 4 seconds.
        • New Talent: Slaughtering Strikes – Raging Blow causes every strike of your next Rampage to deal and additional 10% damage. Stacks up to 5 times.
        • New Talent: Raging Armaments – Raging Blow gains and extra charge.
        • New Talent: Skull Banner – You throw down a Skull Banner at your feet, empowering your allies. Increases critical strike damage by 20% for party members within 20 yards of the war banner. Lasts 10 seconds.
        • Removed Concussive Blows from the Fury tree and moved to the Class tree.
        • Changed some pathing and node positions to try and make synergy groups clearer and add build diversity.
        • Titan’s Grip and Single-Minded Fury is now a choice talent.
        • Moved Rampage closer to the top of the tree.
        • Fixed a dependency issue with Meat Cleaver.
        • Cold Steel, Hot Blood should now generate 4 rage and references this in the tooltip correctly.
        • Bloodcraze’s Aura tooltip should now display the correct values.
        • Improved Rampage is now built into Rampage.
        • Reduced ranks of Improved Bloodthirst and Improved Raging Blow to 1.

PROFESSIONS

  • User Interface
    • The recipe panel has been updated for better ease of use and clarity:
      • Unlearned & pre-Dragonflight recipes are now found via filters.
        • Favorite recipes are unchanged and are expansion agnostic, so you’ll always see them even if the expansion is not filtered.
      • Recipe skill up chance is now represented through icons instead of recipe name text color. This change is more in-line with the new Recipe frame design while being more accessible to individuals with color vision deficiency.
      • Unlearned recipe names now show a gray color instead of a white color.
      • Recrafting Equipment has its own dedicated section in the recipe panel.
        • Please note that for this Alpha build, Recrafting is not yet implemented.
  • Gathering Nodes
    • In this Alpha build, players might notice that there are a large amount of mining & herbalism nodes spawned in the Ohn’ahran Plains. While we’re eager for feedback on how these feel, we’re still in the process of setting up the Mining & Herbalism professions and players will not be able to gather these nodes until the Professions have been enabled. In the meantime, please let us know if there are any nodes in unusual positions and are not easily accessed!
  • Engineering
    • In this Alpha build, Engineering has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. There are a few new concepts that we’re exploring for Engineering in Dragonflight:
      • Engineers are able to craft Wrists for each Armor type, which can be socketed with different Tinkers that have a variety of on-use effects (such as temporary invisibility or summoning an Alarm-O-Turret).
      • We’ve added a combat resurrection consumable for non-engineers: the Convincingly Realistic Jumper Cables. These are weaker versions of the engineering variant, the Reusable Jumper Cables, and we’re very interested in hearing feedback on how they play out over the course of Alpha.
      • Various Safety Components can be used as Optional Reagents for crafting Engineering items – these Safety Components can reduce the chance of tinker malfunctions or outright prevent catastrophic malfunctions.
      • Speaking of malfunctions, the chance for engineering items to blow up in the users’ face now scale their success chance with Engineering specialization traits and Engineering Skill level. There will be a meaningful difference in success rate between new engineers that have lower skill and specialization traits and engineers that have maximized their knowledge of the profession.
    • In addition to the above, there’s a plethora of new bombs, tinkers and consumables that the Engineering profession can make. Please send us your feedback!
  • Tailoring
    • In this Alpha build, Tailoring has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Tailoring, much like the other armor-crafting Professions, has a plethora of new set & item equip effects and we’re particularly interested in hearing feedback about how these new effects feel. Spellthreads are also making a comeback as leg enchants for Intellect users.
  • Specializations
    • Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession.
    • Developers’ note: For the purposes of Alpha we’ve added a consumable, Professor Instructataur’s Top Secret Guide, on the Associate Professor Instructaur vendor that gives players 50 Specialization points. Below are a few Specialization paths.
    • Engineering
      • Explosives – Improve in the production of bombs of all types, gaining +1 Skill when crafting bombs per point in this specialization.
        • Short Fuse – Specialize in the creation and use of bombs without safety fuses. Gain +1 Skill when crafting bombs in this specialization.
      • Optimized Efficiency – Specialize in the general precautions and techniques that are invaluable skills for all Engineers. Gain +1 Skill to all engineering crafts per point in this specialization.
        • Scrapper – Specialize in making the most of seemingly useless junk. Gain +5 Multicraft for all Engineering crafts per point in this specialization.
    • Tailoring
      • Draconic Needlework – Source the magic of the Dragon Isles to craft exceptional clothwear with reagents such as Azureweave and Chronocloth, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
        • Azureweave Tailoring – Focus on the Arcane nature of the Blue Dragonflight in your tailoring, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization when making and using Azureweave.
      • Garmentcrafting – Improve at tailoring Cloth Armor to take on the most powerful foes in the Dragon Isles, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
        • Outerwear – Improve at tailoring the major aspects of an outfit, such as Chest and Leg pieces of armor, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specializations.
  • Known Issues
    • Inscription: Draconic Treatises are infinitely consumable, this will be fixed in a future build. They will be single-use items that refresh each weekly reset for a small boost to your Profession Knowledge.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • New HUD UI
    • Unit frame art updated
      • Party frame
    • Edit Mode
      • Added Cast Bar
      • Added Minimap
      • Added Encounter Bar

Feedback: Dragonriding

Quote from: Blizzard

Here again with a few updates that went live with this build:

When we introduced turn rate tech, we wanted to make sure the when of a turn mattered. However, we might have been too heavy-handed with those values. Now that we’ve found the outer limits, we’ve re-tuned turn rate to lessen its impact. We continue to iterate on the balance here and welcome your feedback. Please give it a try, in questing, time trials, or both, and share your experience with us.

In addition, we’ve improved the hotbars for dragonriding, allowing players to customize their hotbars through drag-and-drop as normal, much like a druid’s bar when in bear form (or other cool forms). This also resolves some issues like not being able to use abilities to dismount and not being able to interact with quest items while mounted. (If you lose your dragonriding abilities, check your spellbook. Characters from previous alpha builds may not have these skills, but new characters in this build should see them there.)

  • Fixed issues include:
    • Rostrum settings now won’t reset when switching dragons, and “Accept” purchases all selections made.
    • Dragonriding visual effects should no longer persist when getting kicked off a mount.
    • Dragonriding visual effects should no longer display on other players in unexpected situations.
    • Players that aren’t Dracthyr or Demon Hunters can no longer double jump after dismounting a dragonriding mount.
  • New known issues include:
    • Occasionally, a character attempting to progress down the skill track will be unable to take new traits, even though they have enough currency. A relog should solve this in most cases.

Feedback: Hunters

Quote from: Blizzard

Sentinel’s Wisdom is very likely being redesigned.
Hunter’s Agility changing from Avoidance to Dodge was mostly so there wasn’t a doubled-up Avoidance node on the tree.

Hotfixes – 5 August, Alpha Feedback: Hunters

We get a relatively large set of hotfixes today with bug fixes and tuning changes! The blues returned to the Alpha forums to give a new round of Hunter Talent Tree changes that are for the most part making their way to the next Alpha build.

Hotfixes – 5 August

Quote from: Blizzard

AUGUST 5, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Fated Raids
    • Fixed an issue that could cause client and server latency after bosses are defeated.
    • Fated Castle Nathria
      • Sire Denathrius
        • Improved the client and server performance caused by Echo of Sin’s Painful Memories.
  • Mythic+
    • Grimrail Depot
      • Grom’kar Captain’s Reckless Slash will now be cast less frequently.
      • Skylord Tovra
        • Improved the visual effect on Spinning Spear.
    • Iron Docks
      • Fixed an issue where Siegemaster Olugar’s Gatecrasher could become stuck on players.
      • Fleshrender Nok’gar
        • Burning Arrows now have a visual effect indicating where they will impact.
    • Return to Karazhan: Lower
      • Improved the visual effect on Ghostly Philanthropist’s Pennies From Heaven.
      • Lord Crispin Ference’s Will Breaker is now more visible.
      • Attumen the Huntsman
        • Spectral Charge no longer damages pets.
    • Return to Karazhan: Upper
      • The Curator
        • Fixed an issue causing Volatile Energy to fixate on pets.
      • Mana Devourer
        • Mana Devourer will once again cast Decimating Essence upon reaching full mana.
        • Energy Void damage reduced by 65%.
        • Resolved an issue that caused Coalesce Power to drain more mana than intended.

Alpha Feedback: Hunters

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello Hunters,

There are some notable changes coming to your next alpha build we wanted to share. This won’t be an exhaustive list of changes, but will hit some of the big points.

As far as bugs, we know there are bugs and things that aren’t working right. Things are being worked on.

Baseline Class Changes:

  • Tenacity Pets no longer have Survival of the Fittest.
  • Tenacity Pets have a new ability, Fortitude of the Bear. This grants you and your pet +20% maximum HP for a duration.
    • Command Pet interactions will probably be a bit broken in the next build, as well as Lone Wolf giving access to Survival of the Fittest as opposed to Fortitude of the Bear. These will be resolved in a future build.

Class Tree:

  • Thick Hides removed.
  • Survival of the Fittest is now in the class tree.
  • There is a choice node to modify Survival of the Fittest to have a shorter cooldown, or have higher damage reduction value.
  • Fogged Crystal removed.
  • Improved Tranquilizing Shot lowered to a 1 point node.
  • Born to be Wild now also modifies Survival of the Fittest, and lowered to a 2-point node.
  • There is a new, potentially placeholder, not implemented, not final, not a promise talent added in the core tree. Sentinel Owl.
    • Sentinel Owl grants you unhindered vision of a targeted area, allowing your attacks to ignore line of sight to the area.
  • There is a new, potentially placeholder, not implemented, not final, not a promise choice node attached to the Sentinel Owl node.
    • Choice A: The unhindered vision of your owl now also applies to your party members, allowing them to also ignore line of sight to the target area.
    • Choice B: While the Sentinel Owl is active, your party gains some Leech and Avoidance.

Some thoughts on Sentinel Owl:
Resonating Arrow from the Kyrian covenant is a neat, unique effect Hunters have to break the line of sight rules. It is very powerful in PvP situations, and situationally useful in PvE. We want to keep the ignore line of sight effect, but do not want to keep the personal or group damage amplification from Resonating Arrow. Keeping utility as utility, and not utility as damage, allows it to be a useful tool when the situation calls for it, rather than something you feel compelled to stack with other effects, or use on cooldown.

Marksmanship:

  • A bunch of nodes in the bottom left area have been shuffled around the tree.

Survival:

  • Kill Command (the Survival variant) now has an innate +10% chance to reset its cooldown. Predator’s value has been lowered from 25% to 15%.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.

WoW Hotfixes – 4 August, Dragonflight Zone Preview: Thaldraszus, Dragonflight City Preview: Valdrakken

This morning we get a small batch of hotfixes that focus on a couple of bugs. In addition to that last night Blizzard released 2 new Dragonflight previews! One for the zone Thaldraszus and one for the new capital city Valdrakken.

WoW Hotfixes – 4 August

Quote from: Blizzard

AUGUST 4, 2022

Dungeons and Raids

  • Mythic+
    • Affixes
      • Quaking
        • Players will no longer be damaged by Quaking during Skulloc’s Gronn Smash in Iron Docks and during Grimrail Depot cutscenes.
    • Grimrail Depot
      • Skylord Tovra
        • Fixed an issue that could prevent Skylord Tovra from appearing once conditions were met.

Items and Rewards

  • Fixed an issue where the spell effect on Ring of Collapsing Futures was scaling incorrectly.

Dragonflight Zone Preview: Thaldraszus

Quote from: Blizzard

Thaldraszus, a wonderous mountain region in the Dragon Isles, is the cradle of dragon civilization. From formidable structures to complex waterways, titan and dragon influence can be found throughout its diverse biomes. The sense of history in this region is palpable, and it feels alive with the spark of possibility.

The bronze dragons used the Temporal Conflux as a seat of power. Its vast libraries of knowledge contain the secrets of the timeways, as well as the Bronze Oathstone that symbolizes their calling to protect all time.

While titan-forged spaces bear distinctive architecture, the places established by the dragons reflect the most cultured aspects of dragon society. The dragons built vast structures, the most glorious of which was Valdrakken. From the top of this grand city, the Aspects passed laws and directed their protection of Azeroth.

Also nestled in the heart of Thaldraszus is Tyrhold, home to the Halls of Infusion. A mysterious place that has been locked away for millennia and holds the secrets that Tyr left behind.

The land is filled with a variety of life that you will see as you traverse through Thaldraszus:

Valdrakken Scaleworn
Valdrakken Scaleworn
Vorquin
Vorquin
Giant Mantis
Giant Mantis
Primal Beetle
Primal Beetle

Thaldraszus is filled with history beckoning to be uncovered. Dive into the mysteries of the past in ancient lands.

We look forward to sharing more details as development continues on Dragonflight. Visit the Dragonflight site to pre-order. Check WorldofWarcraft.com/news for updates and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

See you in the Dragon Isles!

Dragonflight City Preview: Valdrakken

Quote from: Blizzard

A shining treasure within Thaldraszus, Valdrakken is a testament to the power of cooperation between the dragonflights and dragonkin. It serves as a hub of activity for all who visit the Dragon Isles and provides a variety of services.

This bejeweled city is a feast for the eyes and ears, with waterfalls cascading down the mountain surrounding the city and breathtaking views overlooking nearby Tyrhold. There is a tranquility here even as the Dragonflights work with their allies to reclaim their homeland and reestablish a presence in their city.

Key Features:

  • Bank
  • Black Market Auction House
  • PvP Vendors
  • Auction House
  • Crafting Stations
  • Profession Trainers
  • Void Storage
  • Transmogrifier
  • Barbershop
  • Portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind
  • Questing

Seat of the Aspects: Portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind

Located in the largest building toward the center of the city is the Seat of the Aspects along with portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind.

Inn: The Roasted Ram

Take a load off and stretch your limbs (or wings if you have them) in the Roasted Ram inn near the center of the city.

Crafter’s Consortium

A bustling hub of commerce within the city, the Crafter’s Consortium is where crafters and patrons come together. Patrons can place Crafting Orders, or crafters can meet up at the various crafting stations to hone their skills, pick up a Crafting Order, or even recraft goods.

A Home for Every Dragonflight

Each of the dragonflights has their own areas to explore within Valdrakken.

The Blue Dragonflight houses a public library, and you can also visit a couple of the flight members taking time for a bit of tea on one of the balconies looking out over the majestic views of Thaldraszus.

The Green and Red Dragonflights house private gardens filled with shades of verdant green and striking red flora.

You’ll find the Black Dragonflight housing a variety of additional services, including Gear Upgrade Vendors, PvP Vendors, Forge, Anvil, Blacksmithing, and Mining.

The Bronze Dragonflight hosts the Timewalkers faction, a group of dragons and mortals dedicated to studying and preserving the timeways.

There’s plenty to discover in this majestic metropolis. Whether you’re visiting for profit or as a place to rest between your adventures, you’ll find what you need here.

WoW Hotfixes – 3 August, Alpha Feedback: Warriors & Inscription

With Season 4 having started for the EU as well, the hotfixes have continued rolling on on live servers. From bug fixes to tuning changes, check them out below! Furthermore the communication from Blizzard has continued on Alpha feedback, this time for Warriors and Inscription.

WoW Hotfixes – 3 August

Quote from: Blizzard

AUGUST 3, 2022

Classes

  • Rogue
    • Outlaw
      • Fixed an issue that could cause Blade Flurry damage to break Vanish under certain conditions.
      • Fixed an issue that could cause bonus Sinister Strike hits to break Vanish under certain conditions.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Fated Raids
    • Fated Castle Nathria
      • Fixed an issue causing some boss abilities to inflict too much damage and causing some player abilities to inflict too little damage.
  • Mythic+
    • Affixes
      • Shrouded
        • Zul’gamux Blood Barrier absorb reduced by 33%.
    • Return to Karazhan: Lower
      • Fixed an issue where players could exchange Keystones with Ta’hsup even if they failed to complete the dungeon within the time limit.
      • Opera Hall: Westfall Story
        • Fixed an issue that would cause the encounter to prematurely end if either Toe Knee or Mrrgria were defeated before the other.
        • Fixed an issue where Shoreline Tidespeakers could continue casting after being defeated.
      • Maiden of Virtue
        • Holy Bulwark absorb reduced by 20%.
      • Attumen the Huntsman
        • Improved the visual clarity on Intangible Presence.
    • Return to Karazhan: Upper
      • Shade of Medivh
        • Fixed an issue causing Flame Wreath’s visual effect to linger after the encounter ends.
  • Heroic Dungeons
    • Fixed an issue where rewards were dropping at the incorrect item level.

Items and Rewards

  • Fixed an issue where the Eternal Aspirant’s Gavel and Eternal Aspirant’s Crescent could not be upgraded.
  • Fixed an issue where Adera offered some Nathrian weapons from Raid Finder difficulty instead of Normal.
  • Eternal Gladiator’s Prestigious Cloak and Eternal Gladiator’s Tabard now have new appearances.

Quests

  • [NA Realms] “Crossing Fate” quest credit should now accurately reflect the progress that was made. To receive the missing credit, affected players will need to log into the game and enter Oribos before next week’s weekly raid reset.
  • The quest item for “Castle Nathria: Getting a Head” now drop from Fated Castle Nathria.

Burning Crusade Classic

  • The Nagrand quests “In Defense of Halaa” and “Enemies, Old and New” no longer grant any quest credit for killing players more than 5 levels lower than you.

Feedback: Warriors

Quote from: Blizzard

Now that this new talent system is being tested, we have some brief thoughts for you all.

Beyond the mid-point of the class tree, we feel that the left side of the tree is more finalized than the right. We’re working on making these feel equally appealing.

We’re also working on expanding pathing where we can. Due to the way dependencies work, it isn’t always possible to open up choices. Generally speaking, we don’t want to put players in a situation where they choose talents that affect abilities they don’t have.

We’ve seen some strong feelings – both positive and negative – regarding Signet of Ancient Kings. We’re aware of this and iterating on adjustments to it.

Our known issues include:

  • The Protection specialization doesn’t suffer a penalty while using Defensive Stance. This will be updated in a future test build.
  • Battle-Scared Veteran displays the wrong information. It should be: A damage reduction value of 75% and a duration of 8 seconds.
  • Berserker Shout’s tooltip isn’t displaying correctly. This ability replaces Berserker Rage and mimics its functionality. It also breaks Fear for party members within 15 yards.
  • Weapon Specialization Talents are damage buffs; they do not enable new functionality. For example, Dual Wield specialization should not allow Arms or Protection Warriors to dual wield. We’ll likely change some names to avoid future confusion.
  • Fatality is not intended to Crit. Its damage will be balanced around this.

Thank you for the feedback!

Feedback: Inscription

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello.

We’ve definitely noted feedback on the initial leveling experience taking a lot of effort/time until you reach crafts that are useful.

It’s important to know that Darkmoon Cards will drop from all forms of content. The Darkmoon Booster recipe is not the only way to source them.

That is not intended. Darkmoon Deck Boxes will have primary stats in next week’s build.

Hotfixes – 2 August, Dragonflight Alpha Development Notes, Feedback: Shaman

Last night was a busy night as Season 4 started in the US on the live servers and the Alpha servers got the next update for Phase 4! In addition to Thaldraszus being opened, the warrior talent revamp, skinning and inscription have been added for testing.

Hotfixes – 2 August

Quote from: Blizzard

AUGUST 2, 2022

Covenants

  • Kyrian
    • Fixed an issue that allowed Effusive Anima Accelerator’s (Forgelite Prime Mikanikos Soulbind) explosion to strike enemies that were not within line of sight of its point of impact, causing players to unintentionally engage enemies through floors and walls.

Dungeons and Raids

  • Fated Raids
    • Fated Castle Nathria
      • Fixed an issue where Raid Finder difficulty was erroneously granting enemies less stats than intended.
    • Fated Powers
      • Reconfiguration Emitter now shows an additional visual effect while immune to damage before the first interrupt to improve its clarity.
  • Mythic+
    • Operation: Mechagon – Workshop
      • King Mechagon
        • Magneto-Arm now scales with the Tyrannical affix instead of the Fortified affix.

Items and Rewards

  • Fixed an issue where Mountebank’s Colorful Cloak dropped at the incorrect item level.

Player versus Player

  • The Hyperthread Wristwraps effect has been disabled in Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas.

Quests

  • [NA Realms] Fixed an issue preventing players from receiving credit towards the quest “Crossing Fate.”
    • Developers’ note: We’re working on a fix that will accurately reflect the progress that was made for those affected by the bug. We’ll update the Hotfixes once that fix has been deployed.

Dragonflight Alpha Development Notes

Quote from: Blizzard
Take a look at this week’s updates to Dragonflight Alpha:

DISCOVER THE DRAGON ISLES

  • Thaldraszus
  • Removed: The Waking Shores

CHARACTER LEVEL

Developers’ note: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state . After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content.

  • Level 68 Character Template
  • Maximum Level: 70
  • Dwarves have been re-enabled.

CLASSES

  • NEW TALENT SYSTEM
    • Warrior
      • Developer’s note: We feel that all three Warrior specializations have excellent foundations for both their class fantasies and with regard to how fun their rotations are to play. So, our goal for the class in Dragonflight has been to evolve and enhance each specialization rather than to revolutionize or rebuild them.
        We’re trying to strike a balance between existing things you know and love, exciting new talents and greatest hits from that past such as Blood and Thunder, Odyn’s Fury and Cold Steel, Hot Blood.
        With this in mind, players should expect core rotations to feel comfortable and familiar but with a much wider variety of choice in terms of which elements they can enhance. In addition to this we’re also attempting to build in support to enable players to experiment with more varied playstyles if they desire, such as the Arms being able to heavily investing in damage over time abilities and Fury being able to double down on auto attacks.
        We are excited for Warriors to be joining the Dragonflight Alpha look forward to hearing your feedback!
      • Known Issues
        • Some talent overrides are not working correctly, and you are able to use both spells (E.G. Annihilator doesn’t replace Raging Blow).
        • Some talent dependencies and combinations are not working correctly. (E.G. Combining Titanic Throw and Improved Heroic Throw doesn’t apply Deep Wounds to all affected targets)
        • Stances are currently a work in progress and undergoing internal iteration. A large part of their goal is to guide the fantasy of each spec but mechanically, the goal for these is not to encourage frantic stance shifting. But rather switching at certain major points in an encounter, such as For DPS Warriors during a painful AOE damage phase, or for Protection Warrior that are off tanking they may temporarily switch to deal more damage.
        • A handful of talents will be getting a choice-node option in a later Alpha build (E.G. Rumbling Earth and Thunderous Aftershocks).
        • Fury has some issues with Execute related to the new player experience that causes you to have both the Arms and Fury versions of Execute (players should use the variant that attacks with both Weapons).
        • Multi Rank nodes are not always awarding full values.
        • We’re still working on the background art for the Fury talent tree, it will be added in a later build.

PROFESSIONS

  • Inscription
    • Developer’s note: In this Alpha build, Inscription has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. In addition to the traditional Inscription recipes, we’re introducing a new system to Inscription: the Darkmoon Deck Box. Scribes that have fully unlocked the Darkmoon Mysteries specialization tree will be able to make Darkmoon Booster Packs that contain the cards necessary to create traditional Darkmoon Decks much like before. However, Scribes can now use these Darkmoon Decks to craft Darkmoon Deck Boxes, which are higher item level and are able to be inscribed with Scale Sigils that allow them to customize their Darkmoon Deck Box with different attributes, such as removing all Even cards from the deck, shuffling faster or only shuffling when the player jumps. We’re very interested in feedback on this new system, so please let us know how it feels once you’re able to playtest with it!
      Please note that for Alpha purposes, the Darkmoon Ace cards can be bought from Reagent Lord Herbataur. The other remaining cards will need to be crafted by Scribes.
  • Skinning
    • Developer’s note: In this Alpha build, Skinning has been enabled and can be trained by the Associate Professor Instructaur in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. While the core gameplay of Skinning remains largely unchanged for Dragonflight, we are adding a new consumable that aims to give Skinners a new form of gameplay: Creature Baits. Skinners will be able to create and place Creature Baits to lure elusive creatures out of hiding.
      Please note that for Alpha purposes, the cooldown on Creature Baits has been removed so that players can use the item and give feedback. These items will have a medium length cooldown in their final version, which can be reduced by Bait Crafter Specialization traits.
  • Specializations
    • Unlocking Specializations requires 25 skill in that Profession. Once unlocked, players can spend Specialization points to unlock various bonuses for their Profession.
    • Developers’ note: For the purposes of Alpha we’ve added a consumable, Professor Instructataur’s Top Secret Guide, on the Associate Professor Instructaur vendor that gives players 50 Specialization points. Below are a few Specialization paths:
    • Inscription
      • Archiving — Improve at the art of archiving various texts, gaining + 1 Skill per point in this specialization.
        • Darkmoon Mysteries — Improve at understanding the complex mysteries behind Darkmoon Cards, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
      • Rune Mastery — Improve at the art of Inscription and utilizing various reagents, gaining +1 Skill per point in this specialization.
        • Understanding Flora — Improve at milling various herbs in the Dragon Islands, gaining +1 Resourcefulness per point in this specialization.
    • Skinning
      • Bait Crafter — Improve your skinning efficiency, gaining +1 Finesse while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
        • Elemental Infusion — Hone your eye for detail, gaining +1 Perception while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
      • Tanning — Improve your capabilities at gathering general materials from creatures, gaining +1 Skill while skinning in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
        • Leather Mastery — Bolster your knowledge of leather skinning, gaining +1 Skill while skinning leather creatures in the Dragon Isles per point in the Specialization.
    • Known Issues
      • Leatherworking: Feral Hide Drums cannot be crafted. This will be fixed in a later build.
      • Skinning: A few of the Specialization trees are missing description text. This will be fixed in a later build.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • New HUD UI
    • Edit Mode
      • Added Pet Bar
      • Added Possess Bar
  • Equipment sets, guild bank, and macro icon selection can now be chosen with a drag and drop from certain sources (items, spells, mounts, battle pets, macros).
    • Known issue: Macros do not display their spell icon when the question mark icon is used.

Feedback: Shaman

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello again, Shamans!

In today’s new build of the Dragonflight Alpha, we have several adjustments to talents in the Shaman Class Tree intended to reduce the overall defensive and mobility kit of Shaman, which has crept up due to the new system allowing for previously impossible combinations. We’re happy with new talent combinations, but the mobility and defensive power in the tree exceeded our target for Shaman, and individual talent power was above budget compared to other classes.

Elemental
We’ve continued to make minor tweaks to the Elemental tree, based on feedback. This week we focused on improvements to Primordial Wave. It’s generally avoided outside of AoE in the current design, so our aim is to improve its overall value in various game modes to increase build diversity.

We attempted to address node pathing pain points for Storm Elemental with Primal Elementalist. There is now a path available towards Primal Elementalist that doesn’t require sinking more than a couple points into talents unrelated to a Lightning-focused build.

Electrified Shocks is an experiment we’re excited about for Icefury in AoE, and we’re continuing to make adjustments to it. We’ve increased the duration of the Icefury buff which should be an overall improvement to its gameplay given the window was previously hard to fit your Frost Shocks in. We’ve also reduced the number of targets hit and increased the duration of the debuff on enemies, as the intent is for there to be weaving gameplay between Chain Lightning and Frost Shock.

Flames of the Firelord is a niche talent, mainly used for PvP or some AoE builds and we felt it best to combine its functionality with Flames of the Cauldron.

Magma Chamber has moved as its generally more versatile than Searing Flames. Its damage bonus has also been increased.

Talent changes for Elemental:

  • Flames of the Firelord has been removed, and its effect is now attached to Flames of the Cauldron.
  • Flames of the Cauldron now reduces the cooldown of Flame Shock by 1.5 seconds and Flame Shock deals damage 15% faster.
  • Icefury buff duration increased to 25 seconds (was 15 seconds).
  • Electrified Shocks makes Frost Shock hit 3 additional targets (was 4), and the debuff duration increased to 6 seconds (was 4 seconds).
  • Magma Chamber Damage bonus increased to 0.7%/1.5% per stack (was 0.5%/1.0% per stack).
  • Tumbling Waves has been removed from Elemental and replaced with Rolling Magma.
  • Rolling Magma causes Lava Burst and Lava Burst Overload damage to reduce the cooldown of Primordial Wave by 0.5/1.0 seconds.
  • Splintered Elements increases Haste by 10% per stack (was 6%).
  • Fire Elemental once again increases the duration of Flame Shock by 100% while active.
  • Coming soon:
    • Heat Wave – Casting Primordial Wave triggers Lava Surge immediately and every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.

Restoration
We also made some adjustments to the Restoration tree to improve accessibility to damage/utility focused talents without needing to talent into throughput.

We’ve swapped Resurgence and Lava Surge to allow for damage-focused builds to not require talenting into increased mana regeneration.

Dragonflight Alpha: Hunter, Evoker and Dragonriding Feedback

The WoW devs have responded to more feedback on the Alpha forums and have announced more changes for Hunter and Evoker talent trees and the Dracthyr Soar racial ability!

Hunter Feedback

Quote from: Blizzard

Hello again, Hunters.

We wanted to discuss some adjustments coming to your talents in a future build, and briefly mention a few thoughts.

Class Tree
The current design intentionally has almost all utility above the second gate, which means you have 11 points that will almost certainly be spent only on throughput choices in PvE situations. We like having a bunch of abilities located past the second gate that were previously locked to individual specs. This has also created a situation where there’s a lot of bloat of extra abilities and cooldowns that feel mandatory because they are available and likely worth pressing. The last 3 rows of the tree have been shuffled around a bit and will continue to be adjusted to try to prevent most hunters from feeling obligated to acquire multiple extra active buttons.

  • Barrage and Explosive Shot are now a choice node.
  • Stampede now replaces Chakram in the choice node vs Death Chakram.
    • Chakram has been removed from the talent tree.
  • Nesingwary’s Trapping Apparatus has been lowered to 2 points.

Beast Mastery

  • Bloodshed and Murder of Crows is now a choice node, and is where Dire Beast previously was.
  • Dire Beast has been moved to where Murder of Crows was.
  • New Talent – Bloody Frenzy – Barbed Shot has a chance to apply a second stack of Frenzy to your pets. This is located in the second gate area.
  • Beast Cleave has been lowered to 2 points, and Beast Cleave’s duration is now 3/6 seconds depending on your rank.

Marksmanship
While Rapid Fire is not a required ability, we’re trying to integrate it to the tree where it would make sense. Marksmanship has very limited passive Focus generation, and Rapid Fire should ideally help with that. We want to avoid situations where you drop Steady Shot entirely while doing prolonged combat.

  • Deathblow has been made a 1-point node. Rapid Fire casts (not damage events) can now also activate this. The chance for activation is different for Aimed Shot vs Rapid Fire.
  • Razor Fragments now also works with Deathblow procs, rather than being tied solely to Trick Shots.
  • Bombardment’s design has changed – Every 6/4 (2-rank node) Arcane or Chimaera Shots causes your next Multi-Shot to grant you Trick Shots, regardless of how many targets it hits.
    • This will likely be changed to a 1-point node, or adjusted to also boost Multi-Shot damage per rank. The location of this also needs to be adjusted as you can currently select this without Multi-Shot.
  • Lone Wolf’s spot in the tree has been moved to above the first gate.
  • More things connect to Lock and Load’s talent node.
  • Some redundant node connections have been removed.
  • Legacy of the Windrunners and Serpentstalker’s Trickery node locations have been swapped.
  • Unerring Vision’s design has slightly changed to also increase critical damage while Trueshot is active.

Survival
Spearhead and Coordinated Assault are competing for some space in the tree. We’re hoping to identify a set of abilities to that each augments in a way that feels good, and also would prefer a design that doesn’t encourage you to stack both of them at the same time. Some adjustments are being made to these abilities to try to focus on different parts of your ability sets in a manner that lets both Coordinated Assault and Spearhead hopefully feel both distinct from each other, while still feeling powerful on their own.

  • Mongoose Bite should actually replace Raptor Strike now.
  • Predator returned to 25%, rather than 8%. This was a data error when changing from a 3 point node to a 1 point node.
  • A connection between Lunge and Frenzy Strikes has been removed to prevent a dependency problem.
  • Deadly Duo renamed Quick Shot, and redesigned. When Kill Command’s cooldown is reset, you fire a free Arcane Shot at your target.
  • Coordinated Assault is back to 2 minutes.
  • Coordinated Assault no longer modifies Carve. Instead, your pet’s special attack increases the initial damage of your next Wildfire Bomb.
    • Birds of Prey will likely be adjusted in a future build to more directly work with the design tweaks of Coordinated Assault.
  • Bonded Companion renamed Deadly Duo, and redesigned. While Coordinated Assault is active, Wildfire Bomb’s cooldown is reduced by 25/50%, Wildfire Bombs generate 5/10 Focus when thrown, and Kill Shot can be used on any target regardless of the target’s HP.
  • Coordinated Kill redesigned, and is now 2 points. While Spearhead is active, Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite Focus Cost is reduced by 5/10, and Kill Command resets increase the duration of Spearhead by 1/2 sec.

Evoker Feedback

Quote from: Blizzard

Greetings and well met, Evokers! Some big changes are coming to the Devastation specialization talent tree in the next Alpha build, and I wanted to talk through some of the philosophy behind them and how your feedback is helping to shape the tree. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of every change, and more will be changed than just what is listed here. That said, let’s dive in!

With the current Devastation tree, a few things stood out to us amongst the discourse here and in other parts of the community. Namely:

  • The tree strongly signals that there is a “Red dragonflight build” on the left, and a separate “Blue dragonflight build” on the right.
  • Effects that scale with empower level, such as Power Swell and Tyranny, remove gameplay by indicating that it is always correct to fully empower your spells.
  • Feed the Flames & Everburning Flame are an awkward combination.
  • Scarlet Adaptation is having a larger impact than intended on builds.
  • Blue-focused single-target builds don’t flow as well as they could.

To dig in a little deeper to each of these, let’s go through them one by one.

The tree strongly signals that there is a “Red dragonflight build” on the left, and a separate “Blue dragonflight build” on the right.

Having thematic groupings on either side is a great introduction to the talent tree. It resonates as something you would expect for the specialization, and makes it easier to know where to look for modifiers to certain abilities. However, Devastation utilizes both Red and Blue magic, and the current tree isn’t celebrating that theme well enough. Builds that use both types of magic should be the norm, with all-Red or all-Blue being much more niche. To make using both colors more effective, we’ve adjusted many talents’ locations or function, as well as added new nodes. A few examples:

  • Honed Aggression now affects both Azure Strike and Living Flame, increasing their damage by 5% per rank.
  • Catalyze is a new, 1-rank passive on the left side of the tree. “While channeling Disintegrate your Fire Breath on the target deals damage 100% more often.”
  • Iridescence is a new, 1-rank passive at the bottom of the right side of the tree. “Casting an empower spell increases the damage of your next 2 spells of the same color by 15% within 10 sec.”

Effects that scale with empower level, such as Power Swell and Tyranny, remove gameplay by indicating that it is always correct to fully empower your spells.

We’re excited about the possibilities of empower spells and have experimented internally with many varied effects, including Power Swell. As a broad concept, attaching more effects to empower spells seems cool – lean into empower levels even more! What we’ve seen on Alpha, though, is that having even small effects get linearly better with empower level, without situational considerations to change up decision making, detracts too much from core empower gameplay. We see (and share) the excitement for choosing talents that make empower spells better, so Power Swell is being adjusted to not disrupt the moment-to-moment gameplay decisions of empower spell level.

  • Power Swell is now a 2-rank node that reads, “Empower spells increase your Essence regeneration rate by 50% for 2 sec or 4 sec [based on talent rank].”

Feed the Flames & Everburning Flame are an awkward combination.

Taken together, these two talents quickly push Devastation into a space of having Fire Breath off cooldown for a length of time while an existing Fire Breath damage over time effect gets extended. That said, both talents offer interesting potential gameplay and impact builds in different ways. They will now be in a choice node against each other, and Feed the Flames is being redesigned to fit into more builds:

  • Feed the Flames now triggers whenever you consume an Essence Burst effect, instead of whenever Pyre is cast.
  • Everburning Flame now triggers from all Red damage spells, instead of only Pyre and Living Flame.
    • This means that damage from Firestorm will extend Fire Breath. Damage from Ruby Embers will continue to not trigger Everburning Flame, and Fire Breath will not extend itself.

Scarlet Adaptation is having a larger impact than intended on builds.

The current value of Scarlet Adaptation causes a warping effect on how Devastation builds their talent loadouts, in particular due to the interaction with Leaping Flames – when Living Flame hits additional targets via Leaping Flames, all of the Living Flames benefit from any Scarlet Adaptation damage the Evoker has. The Leaping Flames interaction is intended, and the response to it has been one of excitement. However, it is important for there to be multiple options for how to build your character for area-of-effect damage situations.

The intent of Scarlet Adaptation is to encourage, and reward, hybridization for both specializations. Preservation Evokers who enjoy dealing damage can easily access the node, but aren’t required to pick it up in their path to other high-power healing talents. Devastation Evokers who want to help their group with additional healing can take it to be rewarded for taking action when their group is in a dangerous situation. To better meet those goals, Scarlet Adaptation’s damage cap is being reduced to 2x Spellpower, down from its current value of 6x Spellpower.

Blue dragonflight-focused single-target builds don’t flow as well as they could.

Two key talents to these builds are Charged Blast and Focusing Iris, both of which have been the subject of insightful discussion and concern.

  • Charged Blast is intended to be something that can spice up single-target gameplay for those who want an additional layer of complexity within the rotation. Many of you have expressed that the current design, requiring 2 Azure Strikes before casting Charged Blast, isn’t quite hitting the mark because although it does add complexity, it doesn’t add interaction.
  • Focusing Iris is intended to be a more passive option that accomplishes similar goals as Charged Blast. However, the combination of timing an ability immediately after finishing a channeled spell, with the relatively high uptime of the debuff, makes Focusing Iris both more burdensome & less potent than it could potentially be.

To address this, we’re combining what we feel are the best parts of both into a new ability! Charged Blast and Focusing Iris as they currently exist are being removed, and replaced with a spell called Shattering Star.

  • Shattering Star has a 15 sec cooldown, is instant cast, and does not cost Essence. “Exhale a bolt of concentrated power from your mouth for Spellfrost damage that cracks that target’s defenses, increasing the damage they take from you by 20% for 4 sec.”
  • The options in the choice node following this ability are also being redesigned:
    • Focusing Iris is a passive that increases the duration of Shattering Star’s damage taken effect by 2 sec.
    • Arcane Vigor is a passive that causes Shattering Star to generate 1 Essence.

As always, thank you for your playtesting and feedback. We’re excited to hear how about your experiences with the Devastation tree in the next Alpha build!

Dragonriding Feedback

Quote from: Blizzard
Greetings Dragonriders and Dracthyr!

With the next alpha build, we’re making a change to Soar for Dracthyr that reduces their maximum speed from (roughly) 930% to 640%. The maximum speed for Dragon Isles Drakes is unchanged. This only applies to the Dracthyr Soar racial ability.

In the Dragon Isles, all characters of all races are on similar footing in regards to their ability to traverse the terrain because everyone can summon a Dragon Isles Drake. However, this isn’t the case in other areas of the game where flying mounts are the mainstay of travel. In Eastern Kingdoms, Soar is currently over twice as fast as Epic Flying which travels at 410% speed. The result is that Dracthyr have a drastic efficiency advantage over characters of other races when doing non-Dragon Isles content, whether that’s Chromie Time quests, clearing old raids for transmog, pet battling, etc.

Soar is important to the identity of Dracthyr. From the outset of the design process we knew that Dracthyr had to be able to fly in some form, even if we didn’t know the specifics until later. But, Soar is also a Racial ability, and was never intended to be a massive efficiency or performance improvement over other races. These two goals are somewhat in conflict: Make Soar fun and fulfill the fantasy of being a flying creature, but don’t give one race an outsized advantage across large swathes of the game.

What we’ve found while playtesting these changes internally is that the speed change didn’t diminish the fun of the locomotion mechanics. The engaging control system, gameplay of conserving momentum, and challenge of navigating obstacles, are all still present, while also rewarding skillful use of Soar with being able to travel faster than Epic flying mounts. This hits both of the goals nicely – Dracthyr can engage in the dynamic, immersive locomotion of dragonriding, but aren’t able to blitz across a continent in half the time as other characters.

The Alpha period is time for experimentation, testing, and learning, and that often leads to change. Due to Soar being an evergreen feature of the Dracthyr race, we feel that reducing the top speed is necessary for the long-term health of the game. Thank you for your passion, feedback, and understanding. See you in Azeroth!